What States Are Most Likely To Be Hit By a Hurricane?

Most Americans are under the impression that the Atlantic Ocean is the world’s hotbed of hurricane activity. Interestingly, however, the Pacific Ocean has nearly four times the number of hurricanes that the Atlantic does, but most of them never make landfall, staying out at sea. So for Americans, the eastern seaboard, including the Gulf of Mexico’s coastline, are where most hurricanes come to shore.

The average number of intense tropical storms in the North Atlantic is about 10 per year. About half of those turn into hurricanes and 2 of those will become “intense.” The North Atlantic hurricane season starts on June 1 st and ends on November 30 th with most hurricanes forming between August 15 and October 15, “peaking” on September 10 th.

Most scientists see a pattern in the way hurricanes occur over time. Atlantic hurricanes, for instance, seem to oscillate on a 50-70 year cycle called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. This time series shows a peak and valley graph of hurricane occurrences over time, starting at the mean (average) and going up and down every year. Currently, we are in the middle of a peak series, which began in 1995 and will run until about 2020 or so.

The areas most likely to be hit by hurricanes are hard to judge, outside of generic terms like “Mid-Atlantic” and “Gulf Coast.” Many hurricanes make landfall but do little damage, but hurricanes have been doing much more damage (measured in dollar figures) for the past few decades because populations in coastal regions have become much more densely packed.

The State of Florida takes the brunt of most hurricanes, tropical storms, and disturbances because of its location. It has more coastline than any other state (coast:landmass) and its coastlines run along both the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. Even storms which don’t actually make landfall in Florida often skirt the coast, sending wind, rain, and high waves into Florida’s coast.

The states immediately north of Florida also are usually hardest-hit when hurricanes come to shore. East of Florida, into the Gulf of Mexico, however, many states are sheltered by Florida’s projection into the sea and most hurricanes make landfall further east in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

Hurricanes are measured in intensity on what’s called the Saffir-Simpson Scale for Atlantic Hurricanes (or just Saffic-Simpson). On this scale, a category 1 hurricane has wind speeds of 74-95 miles per hour and a potential damage scale of 1 – most damage is to shrubbery, small trees, mobile homes, etc. but no serious damage to permanent structures or large watercraft.

From there, the categories go upwards to a level 5, catastrophic storm (winds over 155mph) which has a damage rating of 500, or 500 times as intense as a category 1. Most storms that cause enough damage to make the nightly news are category 2-3 storms and most hurricanes that make landfall in the Atlantic are category 1-3 storms.